redesign

Google Now's website has received a slick new redesign, and it's quite a looker. The landing page is now rich with animations and background video, providing an experience so immersive that if you haven't already tried Google Now, or even if you've just been taking a break, you might want to go fire it back up. The page offers a great primer for anyone who isn't already aware of what Google's portable personal assistant is capable of.

If you use PayPal (and who doesn't?), and have been pretty unhappy with its mobile app (and who isn't?) today brings a much-needed change. The company just released v5.0 of its app, which brings a completely redesigned interface – and I'm not talking about one of those "completely redesigned" interfaces that moves some menus and changes a few colors, either; this is a complete overhaul – along with a slew of new features.

A lot of little things got the axe in Google's latest redesign of the Play Store website. Most don't seem to be coming back (oh how we miss you, 30-day download chart!) but one of the most useful ones for browsing has been resurrected. You can now narrow search for apps based on their free or paid status: just click the drop-down menu next to "Android Apps," which is set to "All prices" by default.

A couple of weeks ago, we were very excited to find a new, revised version of the Roboto family hiding in a leaked Android 4.3 build. Since then, I've been keeping an eye out for any more Roboto goings on.

With the new Play Store web portal having launched today, I thought I'd check in and see if it was using the new version of Roboto we reported on before. As it turns out, it isn't.

After giving us a sneak peek back at I/O in May, Google has finally rolled out the new version of web Play Store. The new UI looks totally killer, but there's a big shakeup in the features to go along with that new interface, and not all of it is good news. After the Maps update fiasco, it's starting to look like Google is pulling features it doesn't feel are being used by enough people.

So here's the thing, Skype just received a major 4.0 redesign introducing a whole new look and feel that would feel at home on any Metro device. It just so happens that Metro's UI is pretty Holo-friendly. Windows Phone influence or no, the new version of Skype should still feel right at home on your Android phone of choice.

The new release doesn't usher in a wave of new features along with the new coat of paint, but Skype does boast that it is much faster and reliable, with emphasis placed on improving performance and load times.

It's a cool talk; you'll learn a lot about the pro and cons of each navigation structure, but at about 23 minutes in, while they were talking about the new nav drawer design, they dropped this slide and completely blew my mind:

If you've been paying attention to TV Guide's official app, you know that it's needed some attention for a while. Its UI through version 2.x was an outdated pastiche of Gingerbread tabs and gradated iconography desperately in need of a redesign (and support for 4.0+). Today, TV Guide has fulfilled that need (for the most part), bringing to the Play Store TV Guide Mobile version 3.0. The update also brought "many cool new features" to the app, which we'll discuss momentarily.